A Very Brady Apocalypse
by George Zanata
Summary: An unexpected tragedy threatens to tear the perfect family apart.
1. Chapter 1

A Very Brady Apocalypse

By

George R. Zanata

It was another dreamy sun-splashed southern California morning for Carol Brady to admire. She loved being a Brady on such a joyous, groovy, far out, bluebird-on-your-shoulder, carry-a-song-in-your-heart kind of day. She had so much to be grateful for that sometimes she had to pinch herself. She had her enchanted cottage on Clinton Avenue, a loving, devoted husband, six wonderful kids, a very conscientious maid, and an obedient and faithful dog.

In fact, she believed her sheepdog Tiger was the reason her family had lived together in perfect harmony down through the years. On any of the rare occasions when a family member was down, Tiger would be there with a kind look and a friendly bark of advice. Everyone in the entire Brady clan loved Tiger. Especially her youngest son, Bobby. He sure did love that Tiger!

Carol had prepared a batch of thick gooey oatmeal raisin cookies for her kids to take to school, each one decorated with chocolate chip eyes and a big happy grin, accompanied by a note that read, 'Have an extra groovy day! Love Mom.' Her beloved kids were all upstairs preparing for school. Her beloved husband was in the den working on a project. And her beloved dog was curled in his doghouse fast asleep.

Not one weather report had predicted a drop of rain that day. It made it all the more ironic then when a dark cloud descended over Tiger's doghouse and demolished it with a lightning bolt. Tiger staggered from the rubble, looked skyward, and his ears shot up. Another bolt knocked him off his feet. He righted himself and scrambled away with the cloud in pursuit. He tucked and rolled onto the patio and frantically clawed at the sliding door.

"Tiger, is that you?" Carol asked.

A thunderclap muffled his woof. The menacing cloud bore down on him. He scampered across the artificial turf and hid under the Plymouth station wagon, but the cloud struck the chassis and chased him out. Tiger found himself cornered at the fence. He raised himself onto his hind legs, clasped his front paws together, wagged his tail, and whimpered and begged for compassion. An angry bolt catapulted him into the next yard.

Carol stepped into the den. "Mike," she said.

"Yes? What is it, Carol?"

"I'm worried."

"Oh? What about?"

"Well, I just took a look in the backyard and I didn't see Tiger anyplace. Oh, Mike, I think something has happened to him."

"Oh? What makes you think that, dear?"

"Well, for starters, there is a giant crater where Tiger's doghouse used to be."

"A crater, huh?" Mike looked up from his sketch. "Still, I wouldn't worry about it, honey. Tiger has disappeared on us before. I'm sure that crazy dog will turn up on us sooner or later."

"I don't know, Mike."

"Honey, relax. I'm certain he's okay. He's probably down the block at the Wilson's house. Remember the time we thought he was lost, then discovered him at the Wilson's with their poodle?" Mike shook his head. "I guarantee you he's over there right now having himself a great time."

"Oh, Mike, do you think so?"

Mike chuckled. "Why, yes. Look, honey, I have this very important project to finish for Mr. Phillips. How about this: If Tiger doesn't show up by the time I'm finished, the boys and I will go out and search for him. Will that put your mind at ease?"

"Oh yes, Mike. It sure will!"

Two of their boys, Peter and Bobby, were in their bedroom getting dressed. Peter was a bit down. He couldn't understand why he wasn't more popular, why he wasn't as popular as his older brother Greg. Greg was very popular with the chicks. He had cool threads, a cool car, a great perm, and a groovy singing voice. It wouldn't be long before he moved to Los Angeles to start a successful musical career under his alias, Johnny Bravo. Meanwhile, Peter was nearly seventeen and still sharing a bunk bed with his stupid kid brother. His clothes were off the rack, his voice squeaked, and he didn't know how to drive. He viewed himself in the mirror with scorn. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair!

Deep down, Peter knew the fault didn't lie with his older brother. It was his own personality. Mainly, he didn't have one. He was a worthless bum, an empty shell, a creep, a no talent hack, a nobody, and a double creep. No, no, he was worse than that. He was…he was… a triple creep!

"You know what I am?" he asked Bobby.

"What? A triple creep?"

"Boy, you said it!"

Bobby was much more satisfied with his image. He had been recently made safety monitor at school and he got to wear a buttoned-down olive green uniform with a tie, green sash, and, best of all, a brown safety patch with 'S.M.' emblazoned in red. He would guide the leaderless, undisciplined, and unprincipled student body into an age of safety and security which would be the envy of all academia. He would become a living, breathing representation of the law, and would accept nothing less than unbending and slavish devotion to his rule.

That is what the people need, he thought, and smacked his leg with his riding bridle. They need discipline and discipline is what they shall get.

"Kids!" Carol's voice rang out. "Kids, come on down! You don't want to be late for school!"

She waited for them at the foot of the staircase with her trusty maid Alice by her side. The kids trampled down the stairs in single file from youngest to oldest: first Cindy, then Bobby, then Jan, then Peter, then Marsha, then Greg. Each of them received a peck on the cheek from their golden-haired mother and a brown lunch bag from their silver-haired maid.

"Bye, Mom! Bye, Alice!" they cried as they dashed for the front door. None of them wanted to be late, especially Bobby, who as safety monitor, thought it essential he be on time to set an example for his peers. He was so preoccupied with order and discipline and the rule of law that he failed to notice his loyal companion wasn't there to see him off.

After they had left, Alice turned to Carol and said, "Well, that's odd."

"What's odd, Alice?"

"It's not like Tiger not to be here to see the kids off to school. He's always been a very prompt and reliable dog."

"I know, Alice. Bobby certainly takes after him. Oh, I'm worried. I haven't seen or heard Tiger all morning."

"Me neither, Mrs. Brady," she said. "Come with me into the kitchen. You need to take a look at this."

"Oh, what is it, Alice?"

"I set out Tiger's doggie bowl like I do every morning, called for him, and look…"

The bowl sat untouched.

"It's not like Tiger to skip breakfast," Alice said. "He knows it's the most important meal of the day."

"Oh, you're right, Alice. I didn't want to say anything in front of Bobby before - you know how much he loves that dog - but I believe something terrible has happened to him."

"Have you told Mr. Brady?"

"Yes; he thinks Tiger has run away again. He thinks he may be at the Wilson's house. Oh, Alice, do you really think he's over there?"

"That could very well be, Mrs. Brady. It is spring, after all."

"Maybe you're right, Alice. Maybe I'm just worrying needlessly. I'm sure everything will turn out all right just like it always does for our happy little family."

"That's the spirit, Mrs. Brady," Alice said. She picked up her overstuffed laundry basket. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a full plate of chores to attend to. You know, the washing, the ironing, the sewing, the dusting, the vacuuming, and the dry wall stripping. Then maybe I'll take a break for lunch."

"Oh, Alice! What would we do without you?"

"It's my pleasure, Mrs. Brady. Gosh, you and Mr. Brady have always been so fair and charitable to me, letting me stay in the spare room in the kitchen and sharing your meals." Her eyes misted. "It's more than any overburdened, underpaid, and frustrated maid can ask for."

Carol gave her an empathetic pat on the back. Then she headed for her bedroom to lie down and get in her afternoon's worth of fretting.

Bobby's day had been a safety monitor's dream. On just his first day at the helm, he had given an auditorium lecture on the evils of loitering; confiscated a pea shooter; and broken up the infamous fake hall pass ring, an outfit that had operated with impunity for years. He had gone from just another little kid to the most hated and despised figure at Westdale elementary and maybe even in all of Westdale.

He didn't care, however; he didn't need the respect or admiration of the corrupt student body. Bobby had all the love and positive energy he could handle from the bunch of folks who mattered the most: his parents, his brothers and sisters, his maid, and most of all, his beloved dog Tiger. He sure loved that dog. He couldn't wait to get home and see the look on Tiger's scruffy little face when he told him all about how wonderful his day had been.

The Brady's next door neighbor, curmudgeonly old Mr. Dittmyre, schlepped into his kitchen to pay his wife a rare compliment. "Say, whatever it is you're cooking," he said, "for a change, it smells delicious."

"I'm not cooking anything, you putz," she said.

"You're not? Well then what the hell is that on our barbeque grill?"

"How should I know? Why don't you get off your lazy ass and take a look?"

All afternoon, Mike had labored in the den on the latest design for his firm: the grand Westdale Pavilion, a two hundred story high, fifty-five block wide, thirty thousand ton solid steel edifice modeled after the Great Wall of China. The Pavilion was dedicated to the prevention of urban sprawl and waste in Westdale, which he conservatively estimated would take twenty-five years and sixteen trillion dollars to build. The project would be a bit controversial since it would be built directly on sacred Indian burial ground; replace the sites of the Westdale Conservation League, the Sierra Club, the Women's' Auxiliary, and the Steelworkers Union; and run right through the heart of Westdale Park.

He knew that the boys would be crushed; the girls, too, at the loss of their favorite park. He would have to sit them all down and explain to them that sometimes he had to do things he didn't particularly like but knew were right in the name of progress for the community, and he'd smooth things over by inviting the whole family to the annual architect's ball in Barbados. Families normally weren't permitted to attend the balls, which were swanky and had a tendency to get out of control, but Mr. Phillips always made an exception for the most productive member of his staff.

Mike searched for his English-Barbadosan dictionary. Drat if he couldn't find it. Tiger would have known where it was. Then his lovely wife Carol made her second appearance in his den that day. She wore an extremely worried look.

"Oh, Mike, I just got the strangest call," she said.

"Oh? Who was it from, honey?"

"The Dittmyres."

The first Brady to leave for school was also the first Brady to make it back. Bobby made a triumphant dash into the living room, flung his book bag and jacket onto the couch, and hollered for his parents so he could share with them the joyfulness of his day. "Mom! Dad!" he cried over and over. "I'm home! I had a great day narcing at school!"

His parents failed to respond to his repeated shouts. He shrugged and made a beeline for the kitchen to treat himself to a glass of warm buttermilk and his mother's cookies and instead share his joy with his faithful companion.

"Tiger? Tiger? C'mere, boy. C'mere, Tiger. Where are you, boy?"

The first sign something was wrong was the bowl of dog food in the middle of the kitchen floor. It was Tiger's favorite dish: chicken parmigon flavored biscuits with flakes of watercress salad and a hint of tarragon, and it just sat there, filled to the brim, untouched. Next, Bobby discovered the desperate claw marks all over the sliding door. Third, he saw the blackened and pockmarked lawn that looked like it had been the victim of a meteor shower.

He ventured into the backyard. All the patio furniture had been overturned. The family station wagon was blanketed in ash. The artificial turf, the site of many a potato sack race, now resembled the surface of the moon: dark, barren, and uninhabitable. Worst of all, Tiger's doghouse was a smoldering ruin.

"Tiger?! Tiger?! Where are you?!" he cried. He stumbled into the crater in a daze and dropped to his knees. "Where are you, boy?! Where are you, Tiger?! Where are you?!"

His anguished cries went unheard by the rest of the Brady tikes, who rocketed straight up the staircase in order to get an early start on their respective homework assignments and failed to notice his belongings on the couch.

Shortly, his parents slumped home. Carol appeared crestfallen. She trudged over to the couch and wearily sat down next to her youngest son's things and sighed.

"Oh, Mike, what are we going to do?" she asked. "What are we going to tell Bobby? He's going to be crushed."

Mike ran a hand through his permed hair. "I wish I had an easy answer to that. I'm afraid that no matter what we tell him, honey, he's going to be devastated, as are the rest of the kids. We're just going to have to face it together as a family."

He went over to the staircase and called for the rest of the Bradys to assemble in the living room for a family meeting. The kids rumbled down the stairs in their usual formation and gathered expectantly on the couch to hear what was always good news. Alice soon followed suit.

"Wait. Where's Bobby?" Carol asked.

"He's in the backyard screaming," Cindy said helpfully.

Mike went into the family room. The sliding door was open and he could hear his son's weak rasp. He saw Bobby meander in and out of each crater, calling for his beloved pet, a vacant look in his eye. "Bob," his father said, "Bob, will you please stop playing in that crater and come here so we can start our family meeting?"

"But I'm searchin' for Tiger," he rasped.

"I'm not going to repeat myself."

Bobby dragged himself into the living room and flopped down angrily into formation between Cindy and Jan on the sofa. His father then went before the assembly. He wasn't entirely sure what he should say. He cleared his throat. He ran a hand through his hair again, paced, looked to the ceiling for guidance.

"Gee, what is it, Dad?" the kids asked.

"Well, I'm afraid your mother and I have some very sad news to pass along to you and it's not going to be easy for you to hear."

"You can tell us, Dad, " Greg advised. "Whatever it is, we can take it."

Mike had never practiced, much less given, a speech to his kids like this before. All his speeches were packed with the same old fool-proof messages of positive reinforcement to make them feel better about themselves, as in 'the noble and beautiful' oratory he had once given Marsha so she could play Juliet. It proved too difficult for him to explain what he and Carol had seen; he made several false starts, and more tufts of his hair fluttered to the carpet. Then, remembering he was an architect, he fetched the drawing board from his den and rendered a fairly graphic depiction of what had happened to the family dog.

Right before his eyes, the family became unhinged. Horrified, ear-splitting screams pierced the room. Alice wailed into her apron. Greg and Peter bit their lips and grimaced, while Marsha and Jan cried in each other's arms. Cindy ripped the head off her Kitty Karryall doll.

Bobby remained frozen on the couch, eerily quiet, in a trance. Then his eyes flashed. A strange look of defiance crossed his face. He ripped off his safety patch, the patch he had once been proud of, and crumpled it in his fist. No longer was his obsessed with rules and regulations and the law. No longer was he part of the establishment. He whipped around, elbowed his brothers and sisters aside, and began tossing the couch cushions and screaming Tiger's name.

Then he fainted.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

A combination of smelling salts, shouts of encouragement, and hard slaps to the face soon awakened Bobby. His father picked him up and carried him upstairs to bed. There his youngest son tossed and turned and softly moaned Tiger's name in his sleep.

Carol watched from the outer hall. "Oh, Mike, do you think he'll be okay?" she asked.

"It's hard to say, honey. On the one hand, our son is a Brady, and us Bradys have always been able to weather any kind of adversity due to our strong sense of family togetherness and our keen sense of what's right and what's wrong. Then again, on the other hand, our son has just been through a terrible shock. He's realized his beloved companion is never coming back, and it may just be too much for him to handle."

"Ohhh, poor Bobby."

Their apprehension led to a supplemental family meeting without him. Hairs fell here and there as Mike explained to his bunch that he understood they were experiencing unprecedented emotions. He gently reminded them they were all still part of a family, that they were all Bradys and would always be Bradys, and that fact alone would enable them to persevere.

"We're with you, Dad," Greg said through tears.

The speech helped the family make it through a tough dinner. Alice had left a table setting for Bobby. It was the first time anyone could remember a Brady being absent from the table. Everyone picked at their food and glanced to the kitchen at the dog dish the maid had finally, mercifully emptied. No one breathed a word.

After dinner, the kids politely excused themselves and withdrew to their rooms; Mike retreated to the sanctity of his den; and Carol went to take a brisk evening walk, leaving their faithful maid to clear the table, wash the dishes, and restock the cupboards.

The Brady children found it difficult to adjust to their newfound anger and confusion. Jan retreated into a shell of invisibility. Marsha sat in front of her vanity mirror and tried to comb each side of her long golden tresses a hundred times to keep them fine and pretty but found she couldn't concentrate on the count. Cindy tried several times to reattach the head of her Kitty Karryall doll but the glue wouldn't hold, and the head continually bounced onto the floor.

Meanwhile, up in the attic's makeshift bachelor pad, Greg debated whether he should continue on with his singing career. Fame, fortune and even boatloads of groovy groupies didn't mean as much to him now without his one time pet and business agent. Peter, of course, blamed himself. If only he had had a personality…

Bobby dreamed of Tiger's return over and over again. The sheep dog bounded into the back yard, leapt on Bobby, knocked him down, and licked him all over his face. Bobby squealed with delight. And then he saw a litter of tiny Tigers scamper in after their father from the Wilson's place and descend happily on the both of them.

"Ohhh, Tiger!" he moaned.

It was one moan too many for his older brother, whose sleep had been disturbed all night. Peter flung his pillow at Bobby from the top bunk as he had many times before. "Cut it out, Bobby!" he complained. "Cut it out already, will you, you little twerp?"

There was a momentary silence. Then the pillow came back and struck Pete in the face. Then a hand reached out, grabbed his pajama collar, and pitched him off the bunk.

The next morning, a Saturday, the Brady parents assembled at the kitchen table and waited for their kids while Alice brewed a pot of coffee. There were no cheery exchanges, no cute Alice jokes, no compliments on breakfast. Carol dawdled with her cup, unable to drink, and looked expectantly at Mike for guidance, but her husband was lost in the morning paper.

The kids dragged themselves into the kitchen in no discernable order, mumbled their hellos to their parents, and sagged into their seats. None of them were hungry. Peter, they all saw, had a black eye.

"Oh my gosh!" Carol cried. She clutched his face in her hand and turned it toward her to get a better look. "Peter! What happened to your eye?"

"Oh, I fell," he said.

"Well, how'd you do that?" she asked.

Pete shrugged. "I dunno."

"Well, however you did it, we need to take care of your eye right away before it gets infected," Carol said. "Oh, Mike, look at it. Isn't it just awful?"

"It sure is, honey," Mike said from behind his paper.

Carol was a little put off by her husband's detached tone. She hastened her son to the sink to flush out his eye and prompted Alice to prepare a slab of juicy redeye for Peter's use. Alice draped the slab over Peter's eye and she and Carol escorted him back to the table. Pete was so humiliated at the way he looked in front of everyone that he wished the slab covered his whole face. He wanted to tell his parents that Bobby was the cause of his injury, he really did, but he was afraid of what his little brother would do to him if he squealed.

Carol felt mild relief; her middle son was going to be okay. Now everyone could settle down as a family and enjoy breakfast. It would be just like it always had been. Then she noticed a chair was unoccupied; Bobby hadn't come down for breakfast.

"Oh, wait a minute. Bobby's not here. Does anybody know where Bobby is?" she asked. "Anybody?"

The group shrugged. The consensus was that he must still be in bed.

"Oh, Mike, I'm really worried," Carol said. She left Peter's side to go to her husband. "It's not like him to be in bed this long. Oh, Mike, what should we do? What should we do?"

"Relax, will you, honey?" Mike said, irritated. He huffed from the table with his paper in hand. "Bob! Would you come down please, son?" he shouted. "Your mother and I would like you to have breakfast with us and all of your brothers and sisters. Okay?"

"Oh, I'm not here," Jan pointed out. "I'm invisible."

Several minutes passed. Bobby trudged into the kitchen, shoe laces untied, shirt untucked, and face unwashed. He grabbed one of the chairs and spun it around before he sat on it.

"Oh, Bobby, I'm so glad you came," Carol said. "Now, honey, what would you like for breakfast? I'm sure Alice will bring you your favorite: a big, juicy stack of flapjacks in maple syrup. Won't you, Alice?"

"I don't care," he said.

She stooped to his eye level, mussed his hair, and said, "Oh, come on now, Bobby. That's always been your favorite. You have to eat something to keep up your strength. At least drink a little something, won't you? Say, I know, how about a nice old-fashioned glass of buttermilk?"

"I don't care."

"But Bobby, you've always loved buttermilk," she said. "It's your favorite."

"Oh, the hell with buttermilk!"

Carol's eyes widened. "Bobby! You can't mean that!"

"All right, Bob, now you go and apologize to your mother," Mike demanded.

"No, I won't! I do mean it! The hell with buttermilk and the hell with all of you!" He stormed from the table in tears.

"Bobby? Bobby?" Carol called. "Oh, Mike, shouldn't we go after him?"

"Now now, honey, I feel it's best if we give Bobby room to deal with what happened in his own way."

"Oh, you heard him, Mike. He's shattered. He's using strange words I've never heard of; he doesn't want his family anywhere near him; and he hates buttermilk! That doesn't sound like the Bobby I know, the Bobby who rescued his classmate's cat out of a tree or the Bobby who brought Joe Namath to dinner to visit a sick friend. I think we have to do something, Mike."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"How about a visit to Dr. Porter?"

"Dr. Porter? That's a bit on the drastic side, wouldn't you say, honey? At least give it a week or two first. Bobby deserves the chance to get through this on his own. We all need time to get over Tiger in our own way, even if it may seem a little strange or unusual to others." He flipped to another page.

"Hello? Still invisible," Jan said.

Bobby remained in bed the rest of the afternoon through Sunday and into Monday, where, for the first time since he had contracted the mumps a few years earlier, his mother notified Westdale Elementary that he would miss school and likely be out for a few days due to, as she put it, 'unusual family stress.' Mike's boss, Mr. Phillips, allowed him to work on the Glendale Pavilion design at home so he could look after his son, and both parents took turns monitoring his behavior for signs of improvement

At two that afternoon, Mike took a break in the den to renew his work on the project. Alice trekked in with a telegram. "Is this a bad time, Mr. Brady?" she inquired. "Am I disturbing you?"

"No, not at all. Come on in, Alice."

She noticed his sketch. "Say, whatever it is you're working on sure looks first class, Mr. Brady."

"Why, thank you, Alice. It's my latest design," he said. He stopped to explain the concept, how the Pavilion would transform the face of Westdale's downtown district and lead to thousands of new jobs, but then, touched by guilt, he also told her of the little dilemma with the kids and how the Pavilion would lead to the demolition of their favorite park. "I just don't know how to tell them," he confided, "especially now with all that's happened."

"That certainly is a pickle, Mr. Brady."

"It's a pickle all right," he admitted. "Well, anyway, is there something I can do for you, Alice?"

"Well, Mr. Brady, you know how much I hate to trouble you and Mrs. Brady with my problems and be a burden on the family, especially now, what with Tiger being shish kebab and all…"

"Oh, don't be silly, Alice," he said. "Why, you're as much a part of this family as Jan is."

"That's awfully swell of you to say, Mr. Brady. You and Mrs. Brady and the kids have always been like a real family to me. It's a honor to serve such a lovely, caring bunch of folks." She sniffled and wiped her nose on her apron. "Well, I'm in a real pickle of my own, Mr. Brady. I got this telegram today from my cousin Winifred over in Oakdale. Winifred is a maid, too; you remember, she filled in for me last year when I had the gout."

"Oh, yes, I remember."

"Well, I've never told anyone this, Mr. Brady, but Winifred doesn't play canasta in her spare time. That's just a cover. She actually goes out and spends time at the track to play the ponies, and I mean play 'em hard, Mr. Brady. Long odds and high stakes. Winifred goes through coin the way Marsha goes through mirrors, the way Peter goes through pork chops and apple sauce, the way Cindy goes through speech therapists. She has dropped bundles that would make your perm stand on end."

"You don't say."

"That's not all, Mr. Brady. Whenever Winifred's luck runs south, she hits the sauce pretty hard, too. Oh, yes. Her binges can last for weeks, Mr. Brady. On one binge, she blew her entire life savings on Man O' War."

"Man O' War? Alice, Man O' War doesn't race any more. He was put out to pasture twenty-five years ago."

"Needless to say, she was pissed. After that, she borrowed from friends and family to support her habit and, when they came up dry, she turned to, I'm ashamed to admit, the syndicate."

"Ohhh, Alice."

"Yes, Winifred is in a very bad way, Mr. Brady. So I was hoping that, while my cousin is on the lam, you and Mrs. Brady could find it in your hearts to advance my salary to help pay off her staggering debt. Now understand, Mr. Brady, we're talking about an awful lot of money…"

Mike raised his hand. "Why, we'd be only too happy to pitch in, Alice. Don't worry. No matter what the amount is, I'm certain a combination of my vacation fund, Carol's mad money, and the kids' allowances should do the trick. And, if we come up a little short, we can always stage a play or put on a talent show in the backyard."

"Now, let's see," he continued, "we have costumes up in the attic, stadium seats in the garage, and klieg lights in the shed. Mr. Phillips will only be too happy to let me have the whole day off to paint backdrops for the scenery, design the stage, and assemble the orchestra pit. Now, what kind of a production should we put on? Something we haven't attempted before… Say, I know, Alice! How about something along the lines of a nice Shakespearean tragedy? Hamlet would fit the bill. I could design a full scale replica of the castle with a working drawbridge and moat, and Peter would be a natural in the title role…"

"Wait a minute, Mr. Brady. You don't have to go to all that trouble. I just wouldn't feel right asking you to give up your vacation or Mrs. Brady her mad money or the kids their allowance or the family to mount a lavish epic for such a shameful cause. No, I'd feel much more comfortable, Mr. Brady, if you would just raise my salary and leave it at that."

"Well, all right, if that's what you want, Alice. A raise it is. How about we say, oh, ten more dollars a week?"

"Gosh, Mr. Brady, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but cousin Winifred is going to need more financial assistance than that."

"Oh? Well, how much does she need, Alice?"

"Well, sir, if you can be kind enough to quadruple my earnings, I could at least pay off her debt to the syndicate in a month or two. That is her most pressing need right now."

"Quadruple?" Mike swiveled around in his chair, eyebrows raised in astonishment, while his precious sketch rolled up into a ball and slid off the side of his desk. "Quadruple? Did I hear you right, Alice? You'd like your salary quadrupled?"

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Brady."

"Do you realize what that figure comes to? That's double my own salary. Why, that's ten times more than what the family raised when we put on Huck Finn to save the Westdale Sanitarium. Are you sure, Alice? Are you positively sure that's what you need, that you didn't miscalculate somewhere along the way?"

"I know it's an awful lot," she said. "I realize that. I don't ask for much, Mr. Brady. I wouldn't dare to ask for this, sir, if I didn't think cousin Winifred's very life didn't hang in the balance." She sniffled again and tugged at her apron strings. "I don't ask for much, Mr. Brady; a spare bedroom and a seat at the table and maybe a hook to hang my uniform on are all I need. Please, Mr. Brady, help my cousin. Help Winifred. Or, at the very least, do it for me, Mr. Brady. Acknowledge all the hard work I've put in for you over the years. What do you say, Mr. Brady?"

Mike stood. "I'd like to help you, Alice, I really would. But I'm afraid it's out of the question, it's impossible. I have a wife and six kids to support, Alice, not to mention a mortgage, taxes, and a whole host of bills. I'm sorry for your cousin, Alice, I really am, but there is only room in the family budget for an extra ten dollars a week. That's the best I can do, Alice."

"Don't get me wrong, Mr. Brady; I appreciate any help you can give us, but gee, sir, it seems to me that if you have enough money to put on a full scale production of Hamlet, then you must have enough to increase my salary four fold."

"Now, Alice, I don't think I'm being unreasonable in saying that it would cost less to put on Hamlet than it would to support your cousin. My boss Mr. Phillips would give me all the building materials for free; we'd get free advertising at Sam's butcher shop; and whatever expenses we do incur would be more than made up for in ticket sales. I don't think it's also unreasonable to say the family budget is the family budget and we simply can't squeeze in your request. I'm sorry, Alice."

"Can't squeeze in my request?" Alice echoed. "I don't think I like the way that sounds, Mr. Brady." She deposited her laundry basket at his feet. "Now look, sir, I've done an awful lot for this family and I expect a more courteous response from you than you can't 'squeeze in' my request."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Alice."

"I'm sorry I feel that way too, Mr. Brady."

"Well then it appears we're at an impasse, Alice. I don't think there is anything more I can do."

"Oh, yes there is, Mr. Brady. You can find it in that tiny ticker of yours to contribute a more fair amount. If you don't, sir, if you continue to get my dander up, well, I'm afraid you leave me little choice but to take desperate action."

"What kind of desperate action?"

She retrieved the fallen sketch with her oven mitt. "Here's my proposal, Mr. Brady. Quadruple my salary and I'll keep the matter of the Westdale Pavilion in the strictest confidence. Otherwise, if you don't, I'll go straight to Cindy with word of the fate of her precious little park and very quickly your little dilemma grows into a big dilemma." She tucked the sketch in her apron pouch. "So, do we have a deal, Mr. Brady?"

Once Cindy learned of the park's demise, Mike knew, the news would quickly spread like locusts to the rest of the family and then the neighborhood and, by morning, the entire Westdale population would be outside his doorstep to protest and picket and demand hearings. It would be a terrible scene, and Mr. Phillips loathed bad publicity.

"Looks like I underestimated you, Alice," her boss said, gritted his teeth. "I'll need time to decide, at least twenty-four hours to make up my mind."

"Twenty-four hours," she said.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

With his latest masterpiece now in his crafty maid's possession, Mike Brady's options had dwindled to only two: he could tell the kids the Pavilion plan himself to negate Alice's blackmail attempt and lose their love and trust forever; or he could turn over all of the family finances to her to guarantee her silence and file for bankruptcy. He had to admit he had been blindsided by her greed, her unprofessionalism, her blatant lack of respect for the whole master-servant relationship. In all the years he had known her, Mike would have sworn on a bible that she was the most productive, the most loyal, and the most selfless maid he could have chosen in all the world. If he had had one shred of evidence upon her hire that she was capable of such a heinous and spiteful scheme, he never would have let her set foot in his home.

On top of that, his son Bobby's condition had taken turns that left the family completely baffled. His behavior at mealtime in particular unsettled them. He slouched to the table, gobbled down his food, wiped his face with a forearm, belched loudly, and left. Where once Bobby's side of the bedroom had sparkled there were now plaid socks and bell bottomed trousers strewn everywhere, butterfly collared shirts hung on the doorknob, and layers of dust on his furniture and along his windowsill. He was sullen, unresponsive, and ill-mannered, and Carol feared their son had permanently lost his sense of cleanliness.

Once more she recommended a visit to Dr. Porter. "I think it may be the best thing for him, Mike," she said.

Mike hedged. He was a devoted skeptic as far as psychiatry was concerned "No, honey, we've discussed this before. I think what Bobby needs the most of from us now is our love and support and encouragement. Let's give him a little more time to find his sea legs. I'm positive he's doesn't need any professional treatment."

"I hope you're right."

"Oh, of course I'm right." He drew an arm around her waist to comfort her and she settled onto his lap. "Now, now, don't you worry, dear. Bobby may be a little troubled but underneath it all he's still a Brady and he's still our son. What we have to do, honey, is we all have to pull together as a family, show him unconditional love and support, reconnect with him, tolerate his strange behavior, and before you know it the old Bobby Brady will be back as good as new. You'll see."

"Do you really think so, Mike?"

"Yes, I do." He smiled warmly, pecked her forehead, and hoisted her off his lap. "Now go on, honey, scoot, and don't give it another thought. I have a lot of work to do for Mr. Phillips and only a few short hours left to do it in." He swiveled around in his chair, flipped his sketch pad to a fresh page, and started to scribble.

Carol sauntered behind him, planted her hands on his shoulders, and rubbed them in slow, soft circles. "Mike?" she asked.

"Mmm?"

"Mike, I'm worried. You've been working awfully hard the past few days, practically non stop, ever since…well, you know, ever since what happened last week, and I know how important your work is to you, Mike, but I really think you ought to stop for a moment and occupy yourself with something else."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Well, Mike, it's late and the children are all upstairs…why don't you come to bed?"

"I'd really like to, honey, I really would, but I'm afraid this project I'm working on just can't wait. It's vital that I get it finished on time for Mr. Phillips."

"Oh, Mike, you say that about _every _project. Every project is _so _important. Every project _has _to come first. Honestly, Mike, doesn't Mr. Phillips have any _other_ architects in his firm he can give these important projects of yours to? I mean, it is a large firm, Mike. Are you the _only_ architect he has?"

"Sorry, honey. I am his best man."

"Oh, well I see. Well, if that's the way you want it…" She withdrew her hands. "I guess there is nothing more to say. I won't intrude on the sanctity of your den any longer. Goodnight, Mr. Brady." She spun on her heel and huffed out.

"Hmmm? Oh. Night, dear."

Their brief spat wasn't heard in the family room where Peter had settled down to watch an old western. He was too intimidated to stay in his own room. If only he had been born in the Old West and been a wrangler, he thought, he would be able to stand up to and tame the little varmint in the bunk below his. Instead he was a triple creep whom everyone booed and hissed at.

His older brother Greg then barged in and switched off his program.

"Hey!" Peter yelped, "I was watching that!"

"Sorry, Pete, you'll just have to do without. I've appropriated this room for the next half-hour to conduct an emergency kids only meeting on the Bobby situation."

"Huh? We just _had_ a meeting with Mom and Dad," his younger brother reminded him. "In fact, we've had _two_!"

"I'm aware of the number of meetings, thank you. Now take your place."

Sleepy-eyed and clad in matching frills, Marsha, Jan, and Cindy padded into the meeting in their slippers and stepped forward to be recognized by the self-appointed chair, whom Marsha immediately confronted with hands on hips. "Greg Brady, do you have any idea what time it is?" she asked and flipped her hair. "Maybe it doesn't matter to you boys, but we girls need our beauty rest…well, I need my beauty rest anyway."

"Please take your place, Marsha. The rest of you girls take your places, too, so we can call the meeting to order and get on with the business at hand…"

"Now then, I realize it's late, almost nine, well past everyone's bedtime. The reason I convened this super secret meeting is Bobby's situation is threatening to get out of hand and it's up to us kids to set things right. We all can see Mom and Dad's hands-off, live and let live approach hasn't gone far enough and it's time for Bobby to get a dose of his own medicine."

"Gee, Greg, what do you mean?" Marsha asked.

"Take a gander over at Pete's eye. I think we can all agree what happened to him was no accident. In fact, it was a deliberate, despicable act." He addressed his younger brother. "Now, Pete, you can tell us. This committee doesn't fink. Bobby socked you, didn't he?"

"Hey, how did you know?"

"'Cause I'm in the music business and I've dished out plenty of shiners in my time, believe me, most of which Mom and Dad don't know about and don't need to know about. Get it?"

"Greg, you heard Mom and Dad," Marsha said. "Bobby is going through a rough time right now and needs our love and support more than anything."

"We're all going through a rough time, sis, not just Bobby," he reminded her. "Tiger belonged to all of us. The whole family. We're all down in the dumps. Of course we all ache for him, but we still have to find a way to carry on and act like Bradys. We're all doing that…well, there is one of us who refuses to go along and thinks his sorrow means more than all the rest of ours put together. We've been patient with him, sis, and I've willingly followed Mom and Dad's lead; remember, I was the first on board. But it's clear to me now we need to move in a different direction, and fast."

"What do you propose we do?"

Greg stroked his chin, reflected, and said, "Mom and Dad's usual course of action is to either ground us or take away our driving privileges for a month. Bobby, however, has pretty much grounded himself and he can't drive yet for another five years. Hmmm…" He chewed over an alternative. "I don't know what you girls what to do, but as for us boys, I recommend we give as good as we get. Bobby gave Pete a black eye; we give him _two_ black eyes. Whatever he does to us, we do back to him twice as much."

"Jiminy Crickets, Greg, that's a swell plan!" Pete yipped.

Marsha stood. "No, you're wrong, Pete. You're all wrong. Your approach isn't the Brady way," she objected and flipped her hair. "Beating Bobby's brains in isn't going to help us resolve our crisis. It will only make things worse."

The chair duly noted her opposition and ceased debate. "All right, we've heard from just about everyone here, so now I think we should get together on a vote. Whoever is in favor of tough love and unrestrained violence, please extend a hand." Two sprang up. "Just as I figured. Only Pete and I want to make the scene. Okay, I guess that's groovy. The chair determines we have enough votes to proceed with Operation Save Bobby."

"But you're in the minority," Marsha pointed out. "You only have two votes. What about the three of us?"

"Aw, we don't need your crummy votes," he said. "You girls would just get in the way anyway. Besides, Jan is invisible so it's really only two votes and a tie. The tie always goes to the chair. Therefore this super secret meeting is adjourned. Okay then. We'll reconvene here in one week to measure our progress and give ourselves a well-deserved pat on the back." He waggled a finger at the assembly. "Now remember, nobody here breathes a word about any of this to Mom and Dad. That especially goes for you girls. If you do, I can assure you the punishment will be swift and severe. Get it?"

"Yeah, get it?" Pete echoed.

Marsha huffed from the room, nose upturned, unable to hide her disdain. She was inclined to hold her own super secret meeting with just the girls to develop a counter strategy to the boys' plan, but it was late and she had a date she couldn't put off with her two favorite accessories, her comb and brush, at their favorite meeting place, her nightstand with its gold-plated vanity mirror. Strategizing would just have to wait.

Little Cindy had never possessed the mental discipline of either of her sisters. Warnings, lectures, ultimatums, even brushes with diaster, hadn't yet convinced her she should keep secrets; the impulse to share was too great, too strong. She rationalized her weakness. Secrets were bad, weren't they? Secrets had killed marriages, broken up families, and spoiled relationships, hadn't they? Hadn't secrets come between Alice and Sam the butcher? Between Grandma and Grandpa Brady? Between Marsha and her boyfriend Charley?

Damn right, they had.

She impatiently waited for Marsha to complete her ritual. Not long after her sister had switched off the lamp and turned in did Cindy weasel out of bed and scurry across the dark hall, into the boys bedroom, and up to the lower bunk, where she jostled her brother's shoulder to wake him. "Bobby, Bobby, wake up!" she hissed. "Wake up!"

"Huh? What?" He wiped his eyes, propped himself up on his elbows, and saw it was his baby sister. "Oh, it's you." He sighed in resignation. "What do you want, Cindy?"

"I have to tell you something very important."

Ten minutes later, the boys were still conferring in the family room on how precisely they should 'save' Bobby.

"I say we squirt him with a water pistol," Greg said.

"Nah. Let's just pummel him in his sleep," Peter said.

While they conversed, their little brother padded into the room in his pajamas, took a dynamite stick out of his pocket, and screwed it into the candle holder on the end table. He pulled out a match, struck it against the side of his pajama leg, lit the fuse, waved, and padded back out again. The boys waved back. The resultant explosion hurled them and the furniture through the roof and into the backyard, where the boys landed in neighboring trees, their faces blackened and their pajamas shredded. Greg clung to an overhead branch, coughed and spit out ash, and exchanged a glance with his brother.

"Greg, are you badly hurt?" Pete asked.

"Just my pride, Pete…. You know, we should seriously reconsider picnicking near Westdale Armory and Dynamite Emporium," he said.

At the time of the nine o' clock blast, Mike had decided it was in his best interest to give in to Alice's blackmail attempt and keep his Westdale project a secret. He had come to the realization he wouldn't be able to look the boys in the face and tell them the truth about their park, not after he had bungled the explanation of Tiger's disappearance. No, it was best for him to pay Alice off, get his sketch back, and work on the project in the safety of his office in Mr. Phillip's high rise where he would be free from further intrusions.

Bobby's latest temper tantrum, however, had altered his plan, to say the least. Seventy-five percent of the family's funds had been drained by the restoration of the backyard, carport, and fence line, not to mention the damages to the Ditmyre's barbecue grill. The twenty percent he had intended to hush Alice with would now have to be redirected toward the renovation of the family room and the service porch. Would the remaining five percent be enough to stifle her ambitions?

Mike assessed the damage in the family room to see if there was any where he could cut corners to save costs. Maybe he could do some of the work himself. He was sure Mr. Phillips would only be too happy to give him all the time off he needed to salvage the house (paid of course) and provide him with free tools, paint, cement, and lumber. If he could get all of that material and some cheap foreign labor, the plan could work.

Unfortunately, the blast had also been the tipping point for his spouse. Carol treaded over a broken floorboard to announce she'd made the appointment.

"Oh? Which appointment is that, dear?" Mike asked.

Dr. Porter first met with each parent individually in his study. They had been unable to persuade Bobby to join them. He leaned back in his leather chair, clasped his hands on his broad stomach, and listened to their versions of what had transpired the last two weeks. During each session, the psychiatrist said very little, made no changes in his expression, puffed reflectively on his pipe, and only moved to jot the occasional note in Bobby's chart. Like all of the Brady's psychiatric charts, it was wafer-thin; no one in the family had ever done anything outside the realm of normal behavior before. The potato sack races in the backyard may have been a little loopy, yes, but they certainly weren't dangerous.

Then he brought both parents in so they could hear his clinical analysis together. Carol sat rigidly on the couch; her husband preferred to stand.

"Oh, Dr. Porter, tell us, is our son going to be all right?" she asked.

The psychiatrist took off his specs. "Mrs. Brady, Mr. Brady, I'm going to give it to you straight. Based on all the models I've studied and on our conversations, in my best professional opinion, your son Bobby is the Antichrist." He waited a beat. "No, no, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Just going for a little levity." He put his specs back on. "No, actually, your son, from what I've heard today, displays the normal traits of any red-blooded boy his age: he's moody, aggressive, sloppy, rebellious. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Oh, but Dr. Porter, our son's not that way."

"Well, clearly Mrs. Brady, these tendencies have been unleashed and exacerbated by your son's traumatized state and have manifested themselves in acts of violence and destruction. Now, in as so far as the destruction is limited to material property, we have nothing to be concerned about. In time, your son should come out of his trauma and accept what has happened and move on with his life."

"Oh, but what if he's doesn't? What if Bobby gets stuck in his trauma?"

"Well, in that case, Mrs. Brady, your son's rage would consume his entire being to the point where he would no longer be able to function in a civilized society and have to be placed under guard and institutionalized for the rest of his natural existence."

Carol gasped and covered her mouth.

"Now, now, folks, hold on, no one's going to the happy home just yet. It's just taking your son a bit longer than the rest of you to reach acceptance, that's all, given his lack of experience with any type of adversity and his closeness to the dog. Not to worry. Eventually he should bounce back." The psychiatrist removed his specs once again. "Actually, I'm more concerned about how this ordeal has impacted you and Mr. Brady's relationship."

"_Our_ relationship?!"

"It stands to reason that a catastrophic event such as this one can put great stress and strain on a marriage. Maybe you think nothing is wrong and your marriage is as solid as ever. Maybe that's how it appears on the surface, but my trained eye can see where the first fissures, the first little cracks, have already started to form."

He thumbed to a page in the chart. "For instance, you have vastly different interpretations of Bobby's latest incident. You, Mrs. Brady, characterized it as a scary and disturbing episode worse than when he accidentally flooded the laundry room; a feat that put your whole family in peril; a catastrophe so vile, so despicable, so unspeakably horrible that you came for a free consultation." He swiveled in his chair. "You, on the other hand, Mr. Brady, considered it little more than a childish prank. Clearly, you don't see this incident in the same serious vein as your wife does and that leads me to believe you don't value her judgment much."

"It's an honest difference of opinion, that's all. You're making more out of it than it is."

"Oh? Am I?" Dr. Porter gave a long, thoughtful puff on his pipe. "I'm curious, Mr. Brady. About how much time would you say you've spent with your wife in the past few weeks?"

"I spend as much time with my family as I can. I'm a very busy architect."

"No, no, I didn't say your _family_, Mr. Brady. I said your _wife_. How much time would you say you've spent with Carol in the past few weeks?"

"I don't know. What does that have to do with anything? I thought we were here to discuss our son."

"We are, Mr. Brady. You see, it's all interrelated. You've been through a catastrophic event, maybe the first your family has ever faced, and you have little experience in crisis management, so you minimize its effects, even if they include destruction of your own property." He leaned back and clasped his hands in prayer. "As an architect, Mr. Brady, it must pain you to see part of your creation destroyed. Oh, I assume it was you who designed and built the house?"

"Well, yes…"

"So your son, maybe subconsciously, is acting on his sorrow against _you_. You don't know how to respond to that either, so you immerse yourself in more and more work, which, by your own admission, leaves you little time for your wife, the result of which can only alienate her. When was the last time you were intimate with your wife, Mr. Brady?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me, Mr. Brady," the psychiatrist pressed. "When was the last time you and Mrs. Brady engaged in sexual intercourse?"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"I understand the delicacy of the issue, Mr. Brady. Please be assured, you and Mrs. Brady have the full confidentiality of the doctor-patient relationship."

"I don't care what we have, you quack. This is all hogwash. I love my wife very much. We've been happily married now for the past five years. Our marriage is the envy of all of Westdale. Ask any of our neighbors. And what we do in the privacy of our own home is none of your business, clinical or otherwise."

"I see," Dr. Porter said. He took a deliberative sip of coffee. "Tell me, Mr. Brady, do you speak for your wife as well? Would you object if I ask the question of her?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do object!" he snapped. "I object to all of this! My relationship with my wife is not the issue here. The issue is our son. Our son! He's the reason she dragged me down here! She was hysterical about our son! Hysterical!!"

"Yes, I remember, Mr. Brady. As I explained to you, everything that has happened, from your son's destructive tendencies to the frostiness in your marriage, is interconnected and can be traced back to your first experience as a family with a real catastrophe. Now then, since you don't want your wife to answer, I'll put the question to you again. How many times a week would you say you engage in sexual intercourse? Would you say once a week? Twice? Several times?"

Flustered, Mike turned away, ran both hands through his perm, and paced in a circle around the office. "Carol and I don't have that kind of a relationship," he offered. "We don't need to. We have six kids."

"I see…Forgive me, but aren't all your children from previous marriages, none with your current wife? Is that not true?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. Just what are you getting at, doctor?"

"Hmmm…You do realize, Mr. Brady, that couples have sex for reasons other than to produce offspring."

Mike raised his eyebrows. "They do?"

"Why, certainly, Mr. Brady. What's wrong with you? Jeez." He shook his head and jotted a note in his ledger. "Now then, for the remainder of our session, I think we should devote our time and energies to expressions of physical love…"

"Ooh, that sounds good to me," Carol said and reclined on the couch. "What do you think, Mike?"

He sputtered and pulled on his neck collar. "I…uh…well now, let's not lose our focus, honey. Let's remember why we're here. We're not here for…_that_." His face turned bright crimson. "I-I think we should all just take a step back for a moment. Six kids, Dr. Porter. _Six._"

"I heard you, Mr. Brady. Now, relax. Take a breath. There's no reason to feel rushed. We have plenty of time. My next session doesn't come up until four o'clock. That gives us a few hours."

Mike consulted his watch. It was fifteen after two. He didn't find anything significant about the time, not at first, and continued to level criticisms at Dr. Porter's methods and his aggressive probes into their marriage. It was none of his darn business how he demonstrated his love for Carol. He didn't have to prove anything to anyone, least of all this charlatan who unfairly laid all the blame for everything on his doorstep. What did Dr. Porter know about the pressures of being an architect while raising six kids and a maid? Where did he get off?

Carol, though, was warm to the idea. She hiked up her skirt to show a bit more leg and patted a place for her husband next to her on the leather cushion. Mike wavered. He was reluctant to join her; he wasn't entirely sure why, he just didn't feel comfortable, especially in front of a stranger, and something about the time continued to nag at him.

His wife was undeterred. "Oh, come on, Mike, we haven't had any fun for such a long time. With everything we've been through lately, it can only be good for us," she cooed. She uncurled herself from the couch, sashayed toward him, draped her arms around his neck, and leaned in to invite a kiss.

"Oh, I-I'd like to, honey. I w-would. Really," Mike rattled. "It's just t-that I…t-that I'm…" It was then, as Carol tried to entice him with fluttered eye lashes and puckered lips, that the significance of the time dawned on him: he was just about to miss his maid's deadline.

"Don't you want to kiss me, Mike?"

"It's not that, honey. It's…Alice!!" Mike shrieked. Panicked, he untangled himself from her embrace, turned, and bolted out of Dr. Porter's session.

Carol pressed her hands together in a prayerful gesture. She couldn't fathom her husband's response.

The psychiatrist detected her confusion and self-doubt and reached a swift conclusion. "It would appear, Mrs. Brady, that your husband has a deep, irrational fear of intimacy with you. The reason for this fear is because he's…deeply in love with this Alice person."

"Ohh, my."

"Why don't you return to your seat, Mrs. Brady?… There, that's it. Actually, you can lie down if you want to… On your back, Mrs. Brady…Yes, that's it…Now then, we have plenty of time left in this session. I suggest we take it from the top. Why don't you tell me about your childhood, Mrs. Brady? Was yours a broken home?…"

Mike barreled down the Westdale interchange in the ash-laden Plymouth station wagon. It was out of character for a Brady to disobey any kind of traffic law; in all his years at the wheel, Mike had never committed an infraction of any kind. Not one. He owned a perfect driving record. He had never received a single ticket or even been issued a warning; indeed, Mike had never once strayed from the safety of the car pool lane.

On this day, however, he drove with only one hand on the wheel, pumped the accelerator, blasted the horn, and stuck his head out the window and shouted obscenities at the slower drivers. The station wagon wasn't accustomed to high speeds or sharp turns and wobbled whenever Mike climbed past fifty miles per hour. Mike believed his recklessness was justified; his whole future as head of his household was at stake, dependant on him making it home in less than ten minutes and getting to Alice before she could get to Cindy and blab about the park.

A small part of him still wanted to believe that he could get Alice to reconsider, that he could appeal to her honesty, her sense of duty, her loyalty to the Brady family, the fact they were _like kin_. Maybe after a good night's sleep she had forgotten all about it. Or viewed it differently in the light of day. But then he remembered her stubborn refusal to consider any of his reasonable alternatives to her outrageous sum and her cold and callous decision to choose a distant cousin over the family who had supported her over many years, and in his heart he knew he couldn't reason with someone like that.

Missing the deadline was _not_ an option.

Alice's chores could wait. With the folks in therapy, Bobby in seclusion, and the other kids not yet home from school, she had full rein to do whatever she pleased. So she left her apron and feather duster behind and took a stroll into the master bedroom to try on the lovely white sequined evening gown Mrs. Brady often wore to the architect's ball. She needed to see how she looked. The only full length mirror in the house belonged to Marsha, of course, who shared her bedroom with Cindy.

Mike glanced at the dashboard clock. Only six and a half minutes remained. Now was not the time to panic. He was a Brady. So he veered into the emergency lane.

Alice posed and primped in front of the mirror. She turned left, then right, then twirled, then traipsed down an imaginary runway between the girls' beds and winked for imaginary photographers. She had to admit she was irresistible. Why, if only her boyfriend Sam the butcher could see her in this lovely wardrobe, he would instantly propose.

Four minutes. Mike swerved off the exit ramp. The wagon was trembling violently, as if the entire chassis were about to break apart. It was going to be close.

The kids would be home any minute, and they were sure to pepper Alice with too many questions if they found her in their mother's favorite gown, especially Cindy, who couldn't be distracted from the more pressing news Alice had to share. Reluctantly, the maid hung the gown back in Mrs. Brady's closet and put on her uniform.

Mike swerved onto his blacktop. Two minutes. He was going to make it. He was going to make it!

The wagon bounced over a crater. The left front tire blew. The wagon careened to the right. The steering wheel popped out and fell into Mike's lap. He screamed and crossed his arms to protect his face. The wagon skidded off the blacktop, pitched forward, and slammed into a blackened tree, causing all the side panels to drop off the chassis like old faded magnets off a refrigerator.

Mike sat inside, dazed, with a knot on his forehead, all tangled up in the seat belt. There were thirty seconds left. He struggled to remember: Thirty seconds to what?

Alice eyed the grandfather clock while she lazily dusted the living room. The clappers met; there was a gong; it officially turned two-thirty, the chosen time, and Alice's potential benefactor was not there at the chosen location. Should she give him a little extra time? Did she owe him that after their many years together? She hesitated just the slightest bit. What would Hazel do?

Cindy's punishment for tattling on her older brothers was two weeks of home confinement. After school, she was to go straight up to her bedroom and attend to her studies until it was time for dinner. Mostly, she chucked her books on the night stand, sat on her bed with her arms folded, and sulked. Other times she pouted. Once in a great while, she would crawl out of bed, lug her doll out of her bottom dresser drawer, and try again to glue Kitty Karryall's head back onto her limp body.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you, Miss Kitty," she apologized to the assembled parts of her doll. "Don't worry, I'll fix you and make you all better. You'll see."

The maid stepped from the shadow of the hallway. In a cool and detached tone, she complimented Cindy on her apology and offered her assistance, seeing as how there were gobs of glue all over her face and hands.

"Gee, thanks, Alice."

"Sure, Cind. I'd be only too happy to help," she said. Her eye twitched. "Oh, by the way, I have some news to tell you about…Westdale Park."

Cindy's head jerked up. "Oh, what about Westdale Park, Alice? What about Westdale Park? Oh, tell me, Alice, tell me, tell me!"

"Shhh. I'll tell you, okay, but you have to keep it a secret between you and me. You mustn't tell anyone. _Especially _all your brothers and sisters. Remember now, it's a secret. Understand?"

"Don't worry, Alice. I won't tell a soul," Cindy promised.

Thirty minutes elapsed between the time Mike freed himself from the seat belt and the time he stumbled into the living room. In his fog, he had forgotten that all the rear entrances to his home had been dynamited into oblivion, and he had to stagger all the way around to the front door to gain safe entrance. Inside the doorway he encountered a formidable line of scowling and disgusted adolescent faces. The level of open hostility shown him both frightened him and jarred his memory.

Uh oh, he thought. They knew. They knew everything. He was beneath their contempt. Mike needed to say something, _anything_, to alleviate the tension, to restore their broken faith, win back their love and trust, and make his beloved family whole again.

"Hiya, kids," he offered. "Say…um…what's new?"

The group responded with a freeze out. The girls stomped their feet, flipped their hair, and turned their backs on him. The boys did the same. At Greg's nod, the troop moved out in standard formation and marched in lockstep up the stairwell. It was like their father wasn't even there. He was the invisible one now. Just as Mike had feared, he had lost them. Perhaps forever. How could he ever get them back now?

Their protest left him alone with his disloyal and unscrupulous maid. As Mike saw it, it was Alice who was most responsible for the unraveling of his family, who valued her needs above everyone else's, who had tried to bilk him out of tens of hundreds of dollars to satisfy her own selfish demands. If nothing else, even if he couldn't redo all the damage she had caused, he could certainly give her a piece of his mind.

"I'd like to have a word with you, Alice," he sneered.

"Sorry, it's a little late for that, Mr. Brady. We made a deal in good faith. Now, you'll just have to live with the consequences, won't you? Oh here, you can have this…" Alice withdrew the blueprint from her apron and tossed it at his feet. "Not your best work. Now, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Brady, I have work of my own to do. Dinner will on the table at six, though I can't imagine why anyone would still want to eat with you. I'll bring a tray up to your room, Mr. Brady." Alice strolled out of the room with a smirk.

Mike caught up to her in the kitchen, collared her by the arm, and twisted her around to face him. "Just a minute, Alice. You don't leave a room unless I dismiss you first!" he fumed. "I'm still your employer, Alice! And as your employer, I am entitled to-"

"Get out of my kitchen, Mr. Brady, at once!"

"What?!" Mike couldn't believe his ears. "_Your _kitchen?! It's _my_ kitchen! I _designed_ this kitchen, Alice! Every single cupboard in here belongs to me!! Do you hear me, Alice?? This is my prop-"

She shoved and wiggled her feather duster in his face. Mike coughed and spit out a few feathers.

"All right, that's it, Alice!" he sputtered. "I've tried to be calm! I've tried to be cool! I've tried to be reasonable! But your behavior is simply inexcusable! You leave me no choice but to terminate your employment with us immediately!"

"What? Ha!!" she scoffed. "That's a hollow threat and you know it, Mr. Brady. It's not a decision you can make by yourself; I'm owned by Mrs. Brady as well, and she'll never agree to-"

"Leave my wife out of this, Alice! It was _me _you came to! It was _me _who offered to help you and it was _me_ whom you turned down, and it was _me_ you tried to blackmail, and it was _me _you betrayed to the kids! Remember, Alice? Now, _I _would like you out of here, Alice, kit and caboodle, or, so help me, I'll turn litigious and sue you for everything you've got!"

Alice's smirk faded. She knew a lowly little maid wouldn't stand a chance against Mr. Brady's powerful team of Westdale lawyers. He would leave her penniless and broken, and cousin Winifred would be an easy mark for the syndicate.

"That's right, Alice." Mike jabbed a finger at her chest. "Not only are you terminated, but I'm going to use every contact I have in architecture to see to it you can't housekeep for anyone in Westdale ever again."

"You can't do that, Mr. Brady!" she shrieked. "That's my livelihood! That's all I've ever known! I'll be destitute! I-I won't be able to support myself! I-I won't be able to protect Winifred!"

"Sorry, Alice, but you should've thought of all that before your selfish betrayal." He grasped her arm and yanked her toward the spare room. "Now then, Alice, I want you to clean out everything in here and then hit the street." He swiveled his head. "Say, you know, with a little work, I could turn this into a second bathroom. What do you think, Alice?"

She plunked him with the feather duster. Mike swooned to the carpet, instantly rendered unconscious. Alice dragged him by the arms into the spare room, picked his wallet, latched the door, and went right on with her duties as if nothing had occurred.

Mrs. Brady soon returned home in a radiant glow. She twirled into the den and the living room, then did a lovely pirouette into the kitchen.

Alice peered up from the wine cabinet. "Say there, you look like a new woman, Mrs. Brady," she observed.

"Oh, do I, Alice?" Carol fluffed her hair. "Well…where shall I begin? Psychiatry is wonderful, just wonderful, and Dr. Porter is an amazing man…Do you know, Alice, that when your boss Mr. Brady left unexpectedly without so much as a goodbye, Dr. Porter was kind enough to fill in for him?" She fanned herself. "Oh, I may have had to walk home, but I tell you, it was worth every step…Well, anyway, where is my husband, Alice? I need to speak to him in private. I know he's here."

"Mr. Brady?" Alice froze. "Here? Why, uh, no, Mrs. Brady. He's not here. I haven't the foggiest idea where he is. I haven't seen him since this morning."

"That's interesting." Carol closed in on her and cornered her at the cabinet. "The reason I ask, Alice, is that Mr. Brady mentioned your name during our session."

"My name?"

"Yes; it came up in a very…_heated_ moment."

"I don't follow you, Mrs. Brady."

"Oh, don't be coy, Alice," Carol snapped. "I know all about you and Mr. Brady."

Alice turned. "You do?"

"Yes. Dr. Porter clued me in."

"Dr. Porter? He knew about our deal?"

"Deal; arrangement; rendezvous; whatever you'd like to call it, Alice. I know you're the reason Mr. Brady had to race home so you and he could...you know…be together. So where is he, Alice? I demand you show me where that ingrate is right now!"

Alice's eye twinkled. "Why, I'd been only too happy to show you, Mrs. Brady…"

The spare room, as Carol would expect of her caretaker, was pristine and immaculate, with all her furniture dusted to a fine sheen and her blue and white aprons ironed, pressed, and hung neatly in the closet. The only item out of place was her husband's prone body on the floor.

"Michael Paul Brady?! Is that you? My God!!" Carol gasped, her hand on her chest, dumbstruck. "What…what on earth is Mr. Brady doing in _your_ _bedroom_, Alice??"

Alice whistled, filed her nails.

"What are you saying, Alice? Are you saying that you and my husband…really had an…an…an…behind my back?! In my house?!" Carol's lips quivered. "How…how long has this been going on?" she asked.

"Oh, about a day and a half," Alice said.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"Ohhh, Alice…" She sagged onto the bed. "What about the kids? Do they know?"

"I'm afraid so, Mrs. Brady. Mr. Brady did his best to keep it a secret, but…" Alice sat beside her and explained how he had offered her the family bank account and a trip to Barbados to keep her quiet, then, when she bravely turned him down, threatened her with dismissal. "He'd do anything, Mrs. Brady. _Anything_. He was falling apart. I found him in here just like you did, passed out."

Carol peered down at her husband. "Ohhh, Mike…"

"You'd better look at this, Mrs. Brady." Alice drew an arm around her shoulder and led her back into the kitchen. She produced a half-filled wine bottle from the cabinet.

"Mike's?" Carol asked.

"It's only cooking sherry, but apparently it was enough. Oh, I'm so sorry, Mrs. Brady. I know it's a lot to take in. I'm so ashamed. Our behavior--especially his--has been just disgraceful."

"Ohhh, Alice…"

They shared a tender hug. "There, there, Mrs. Brady," she said, and picked Carol's broach. "Don't let Mr. Brady get you down. Dinner will be ready soon. Tell you what, why don't you whip up a batch of your homemade cookies for desert? You know how everyone loves your cookies. They sure do!"

"Oh, Alice, that's sweet of you to say, but I don't know..."

"Why, I'd be only too happy to lend you a hand, Mrs. Brady," Alice said. She whipped out a baking sheet and a roll of cookie dough from her apron pouch. "Everything is right here!"

Soon, Carol had been pleasantly diverted and Alice wandered unnoticed into the master bedroom with the broach. Between the twin beds on the night stand was the phone book. She flipped to the white pages, took out Mrs. Brady's bank card, and placed a call to the Westdale National Savings and Loan.

Upstairs, the kids had assembled in the girls' bedroom to decide how long their freeze out should last. The girl's enthusiasm for it had waned. They were in favor of a dinnertime moratorium so their father could join them at the table. The boys believed that the girls had gone soft and were adamant the freeze out continue indefinitely. It would only end when they had a written guarantee from Mr. Phillips that Westdale Park would be spared.

"Greg, I think you're being unreasonable," Marsha said.

The chair squelched further debate and moved for an immediate vote. Predictably the result was the same as before: a tie, as Jan hadn't yet switched over to visibility, and the chair announced that he would cast the tiebreaker in favor of the indefinite freeze out.

"I believe there is someone you missed."

The group turned to see Bobby drift into their midst. Their kid brother was outfitted in a black leather jacket, a dirty white T-shirt with a portrait of Janis Joplin, and faded black denims with a hole cut into each leg. He flashed each of his siblings the peace sign. "Cind, Jan, what's up ladies? Nice bod, Marsh. Hey, Pete, how's the eye?" He strolled up to his big brother, the self-appointed chair and darling of the establishment, crossed his arms, and stuck out his chin. "Sooo," he said, "you're having a meeting, huh? Why wasn't I invited, Greggy?"

"Shouldn't you be in bed, little brother?"

Bobby yanked him by the collar down to his face. "Oh, I bet you'd like me to stay in bed. I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?" He slapped Greg's cheeks and shoved him backward, and his brother stumbled and fell over Cindy's headless doll. "Anybody else wanna get cute?" he asked.

Pete fled. The girls quaked together in a huddle. Greg gulped and clutched Kitty Karryall to his chest.

"So what's this little meeting about anyway? Me?"

"That's privileged information and we don't have to tell you anything," Greg yelped. "Furthermore, I think someone has to be reminded of who exactly the chair is around here-"

Bobby beaned him with Kitty's head.

"Oww! Hey now, you stop that!" Greg tried to protect himself from another strike. He saw Johnny Bravo's entire musical career plunge into the abyss. "You maniac, you'll muss my perm!"

Bobby retrieved Kitty's head and tossed it back and forth from one hand to the other like a baseball. "Then talk," he said.

"Okay, okay, take it easy…" Under duress, Greg rattled off the particulars of the Westdale Pavilion plan and how he and the other kids had learned of the news from Cindy.

Unlike his brothers and sisters, Bobby wasn't fazed by the possible demise of his favorite park. The news didn't hold any special significance now, not with his faithful companion unable to roam around in the grass and chase pigeons and bark at parked cars. Without him, Westdale Park was just so…square.

"Where did you hear this?" he asked Cindy.

"I'd really rather not say." His kid sister had picked this moment to test her newfound resolve not to tattle.

In less than ten minutes, Alice had drained both the Bradys of their life savings and transferred the entire sum to her cousin's Oakdale account to bolster her finances. She slipped back into the kitchen and sidled up to Mrs. Brady at the oven. The cookie dough had been molded into twenty-eight smiley faces, four apiece for Mrs. Brady, the kids, and herself. Mr. Brady wouldn't be receiving anything from his wife for a good long while.

"Those look lovely, Mrs. Brady," she said. "Well, would you look at the time? I've got to get supper on the table. I'll take over for you, Mrs. Brady, and you can go get cleaned up and make sure the kids are ready."

Carol hurried out. She was pleased that she had been useful and pleasantly surprised at Alice's graciousness. Her maid may not have been completely innocent in the matter but it was clear to Carol now who the provocateur had been.

Alice hovered over the cool metal sheet and snickered. How terribly naïve Mrs. Brady could be. She withdrew a hypodermic syringe from her apron pouch and tapped it with a forefinger until a clear drop of liquid squirted from the tip. She was absolutely convinced it had to be done. There was no other way. It was for Winifred. She eased the syringe into each innocent smiley-faced cookie. There was no turning back now.

Cindy screwed up her mouth and rebuffed her sibling's attempts to make her spill her secret. She resisted the promise of a makeover from Marsha and the threat of expulsion from future family meetings with Greg. She didn't even break a sweat when Bobby raised the window and threatened to punt her doll's head into the evening air.

"If I hafta sacrifice Kitty for my principles then that's what I'll do," she said.

The gang had to concede their methods were ineffective. The new de facto chair, Bobby, suggested that they take a recess to eat and resume their efforts after dinner.

Motivated by extreme fear, Peter had scampered from his bedroom to the bathroom to the hall closet to the attic to the laundry room to his folk's bedroom. But he couldn't convince himself Bobby wouldn't find him. He wasn't safe anywhere in the house…or on Clinton Avenue…or in Westdale!

He grew hungry on his way to the airport and dropped into the kitchen to take along a few snacks. There he observed his faithful maid Alice poised over a cookie with a hypodermic.

"Gee, Alice, what the heck are you doing?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm just making desert," she said in a flat, distant, oddly mechanical voice. She pivoted and extended her arm to him. "Here, have a cookie. Have a cookie, Winifred. Don't you think they look simply delicious?"

"Winifred?" he repeated. "Are you all right, Alice? Don't you know who I am? It's me. It's Pete Brady."

Her face twitched and her left eyelid fluttered. "Eat the cookie, Winifred. Go on. Have a little bite."

Peter began to back out of the room. "Uh, no thanks, Alice," he stammered. "I'm not as hungry as I thought I was. In fact, I'll think I'll go ahead and skip dinner tonight if you don't mind."

"You're not going anywhere, Winifred…"

Alice jabbed the hypodermic at him. Peter evaded her thrust and darted for the kitchen table. He knocked down a chair to slow her pursuit, enveloped her with the tablecloth, and dashed through the entranceway. She whipped the cloth off her face and stepped calmly over the chair.

In the living room, he winged his mother's favorite vase at her head, missed by a solid foot, and shattered it against the wall. "You throw like a girl, Winifred," the maid cackled. He grasped on to the banister, galloped up the staircase, and hollered for his brothers and sisters to come to his aid.

He ran into his older brother in the hallway. "Greg, help me!" he yelped.

"Why? What is it, Pete?"

He latched on to Greg's sleeve, tried to catch his breath. "It's Alice! She's after me!"

"After you?"

"Yes! Something's wrong with her, Greg! She keeps calling me Winifred! Not only that, I think she's spiked our desert!"

"What are you talking about? You sound dippy."

"No, no it's true! I saw her, Greg! I saw her, I tell ya! Don't you believe me?"

"Well, even if I did, there's not much I can do," he said. "You see, when you went into hiding, Bobby stripped me of my chairmanship and all of its powers and exiled me to the attic. I can't take any kind of action now. I have no authority. You'll have to discuss the matter with him instead."

Alice swooped into the corridor.

"Greg, _do something_!" he pleaded.

"Sorry, Pete. I'm no more than a figurehead now."

Pete shoved past him and raced for the girls bedroom.

Greg shook his head at his brother's cowardice. Alice approached him. "Oh hi, Alice," he said cheerfully. "Say listen, do you know what's eatin' Pete?"

"Not at all," she said. "Here, have a cookie."

"Well, I shouldn't really have a treat before dinner, but I suppose one cookie couldn't hurt," he chuckled. "Gee thanks, Alice. I know this will hit the spot." He happily wolfed it down. By the time he realized his younger brother had been correct, it was already too late.

Peter shut the door to the girls' room, braced his ninety-five pound frame against it, stretched his chicken wing arms as far as he could, and squeaked at his sisters for assistance. None of them believed his story or were predisposed to take any action, even when they heard loud thuds emanating through their door. Marsha sat impassively and groomed her hair; Jan reminded him of her invisible state; and Cindy read from Gloria Steinham.

"Don't you hear her? She's coming!" He leveled a gaze at his baby sister. "You must know _something, _Cindy! Please! Aw, c'mon, Cindy, remember the Buddy Hinton incident! You owe me!"

"I will not be a slave to my past," she sniffed.

It was Peter's last plea. Alice smashed through his feeble barricade and bowled him over. Terrified, he half-slid, half-crab walked out of her path backward across the room and plastered himself against the wall.

"Hiya, kids," she said in her normal chipper tone, waved, and smiled innocently.

"Hi, Alice!" The girls waved back.

"Sorry, I had no idea your door was locked. Gee, I didn't see you there Winifred. Didn't mean to startle you."

"See?! I told ya, I told ya! Where's Greg? What did you do to him?"

"Johnny Bravo has warbled his last note," she said. "Oh, say, I have a whole bunch of fresh homemade cookies here just aching to be eaten. How about it, folks?"

"Well, I really shouldn't spoil my dinner but… I'll try one, Alice," Marsha volunteered. She daintily nibbled a piece. "Mmmm. Delectable. Simply delectable. You've outdone yourself, Alice," she said, then her beautiful, noble face showed pained shock and turned purple and she held her stomach. "Oh, Alice…why?" she uttered. She draped an arm over her forehead, let out a feathery sigh, and keeled gently to the floor.

Jan rolled her eyes at her sister's bravura performance. Cindy clapped enthusiastically. Peter screamed and jackknifed through their glass window, plunging three feet to his unfortunate end, having never developed a personality.

The girls picked their way through the shards of glass. "Gosh, why did Peter jump, Alice?" Jan asked.

"I don't know the answer to that, Jan," she said. "I can tell you one thing: if your mother ever saw the condition of this room, she wouldn't be pleased. What say the three of us all pitch in and clean up this mess before someone else gets hurt? We can start with your sister. Who wants to help me lift Marsha?"

Jan collaborated with her to haul Marsha into bed. Cindy didn't assist. Her pupils were fixed on the jagged mid-sized hole in her window pane. She wondered aloud if Peter's plummet had had anything to do with the secret.

"What secret?" Jan asked.

"I can't tell you," she said. "I promised Alice I wouldn't tell --oops. Sorry, Alice."

"What secret?" Jan insisted. She was treated to the same chill-inducing gaze from Alice her father had received and realized whom Cindy had been protecting. She peered down at her sister's limp form, peered around to the smashed window pane, then peered back into the small, cold, twitchy eyes of her maid. She pressed her hands to her face and gasped.

"Something the matter, Jan?" Alice hissed. "Don't you worry, I have something here that'll help you to relax…" She stuck the cookie under Jan's nose.

Jan drew away from the bed. "She can see me, Cindy! Oh no! What do we do?"

"She's too old to catch the both of us! Take evasive action!"

The girls scattered. Cindy ducked under Alice's arm, scooted through her legs, and swerved into the corridor. Jan simultaneously looped around the maid and eluded her grasp as well.

She paused at her bed on her way out and snapped her fingers. Her lucky locket! Why, she couldn't go anywhere without her lucky locket! It would protect her! She fished out the chain from her jewelry box and snapped it around her neck. "There! See, Alice! It's my lucky locket!" she boasted. "Nothing can harm me with my lucky locket on!"

"Oh, really? Let's test that theory, shall we?" Alice closed in on the middle sister.

Wailing, Cindy hi tailed it through the corridor. She couldn't wait for Jan. She needed the new chair's cunning and wisdom to know what to do. She zipped into the boys bedroom where she saw her brother at his work station. Dynamite sticks of different lengths were arrayed before him on the desktop.

"Hi there, Cindy! Come on in. I've targeted the bathroom next for destruction. Wanna help me blow it to smithereens?"

Still wailing, Cindy wheeled back into the hall. A few steps past the attic door, she was sighted by her wicked maid. Cindy froze. Jan's locket was now around Alice's neck. Cindy's wail found a new pitch as she sped to the center of the hall and zoomed down the staircase.

She pounded on the door to the master bedroom. "Mommy, Mommy, come quick!" she wailed. "Alice has gone coo coo! Hurry, Mommy, hurry!

Carol stuck her toweled head out the door. "Cindy? I should've known it was you! I was _trying_ to take a nice steam. Now what is all the hub bub about? And where are your brothers and sisters? Alice is set to have dinner on the table shortly."

Her daughter's explanation of Alice's recent behavior was frantic, punctuated with wild gestures, and largely incomprehensible.

"Cindy, I'm very disappointed in you. How many times have your father and I warned you not to tattle?! Now I don't want to hear any more. I want you to march up those stairs, go to your room, and get ready for dinner. After dinner we'll hold a meeting to discuss your punishment."

"But Mommy-"

"I'm not going to warn you again, young lady…"

She bowed her head. "Yes, Mommy."

Carol slammed her door. Just then her clever maid crept to the staircase. She crouched onto the banister, slid down the railing like a witch aboard a broomstick, and toppled Cindy to the floor with a forearm shiver. It was a textbook tackle; the years she had spent watching the boys play on the Westdale high school football team had paid off. She emerged from the collision unhurt and free from further interference; her little nemesis was out cold.

While Carol luxuriated in the steam bath, her maid snuck back into the master bedroom to place another call, this one to the tiny and seldom used Westdale Volunteer Police Department to finger her employers for her own activities. In the guise of an anonymous, concerned citizen, she told the dispatcher there were strange goings on in the house and requested a cruiser come by to investigate.

With the police on route, Alice got to work framing Mr. and Mrs. Brady. She planted Jan's locket in Mrs. Brady's jewelry box and sprinkled bits of glass in Mr. Brady's sports coat pocket. She meticulously wiped down her prints with the feather duster and chucked the remaining cookies down the garbage disposal. Lastly, she went into her room and planted the wine bottle in Mr. Brady's left hand and Kitty's head in his right.

Two officers arrived and spotted Peter lying beneath the smashed window. They canvassed the perimeter, discovered the crumpled, ash-covered station wagon, and noted they had had a report of an ash trail along the interchange. The officers were shocked by the depth of destruction and requested back up.

Six officers kicked the door in and entered the living room with guns drawn. Alice greeted them with a wave and briefed them on recent events. She led them first to the master bedroom and Mrs. Brady who was in her bathrobe, shower slippers, and hairnet, and hadn't heard a thing in the past hour.

"What on earth??" she cried, covering herself. Alice showed the police Jan's treasured locket in her jewelry box, and they arrested Mrs. Brady on circumstantial evidence. "Would somebody please tell me what's going on? Alice, do you know anything about this??" she demanded as she was cuffed and read her Miranda rights.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Brady. I'll be sure to bail you out," the maid replied cheerfully. "Mr. Brady, too."

Alice directed the police to the spare room. A bucket of cold tap water roused Mr. Brady. He was forced to his feet and apprehended on multiple charges including speeding, reckless driving, possession of alcohol, destruction of property, suspicion of murder, attempted blackmail, and aggravated battery on a dolly. Mike was too woozy to respond.

The two suspects were ushered through the living room and down the front steps. Carol suggested she and her husband travel to the station in separate squad cars.

The police conducted a sweep of the interior and confiscated the cache of dynamite sticks in the boys' room. They happened on Bobby in the bathroom under the sink, dragged him out by his padded pajama feet, and snatched the stick in his hand away.

"The fuzz? Oh, great," he muttered.

He was carted to a squad car in cuffs and deposited in the back seat next to his father. "Say, they got you too huh, Dad?" he asked.

"That's right, son."

"What are you here for?"

"I don't really know. Some manufactured charge, I'm sure," he said bitterly. "You know, circumstantial evidence."

"Circumspecial?"

"No, son. _Circumstantial_," he chuckled. "I'll tell you all about it during fingerprinting before they take you to the hall for juvenile delinquents."

Soon Westdale's finest had left the Brady residence. Alice was left alone to savor her victory. The maid took a stroll into the front yard and inhaled the crisp late evening breeze. Ah, how delicious, she thought. It would be wonderful to eat at the dinner table for a change. It sure would!

There were a lot of changes to be made now that her employers would be gone for seven to ten years pending appeal. Alice planned to move to their master bedroom and convert her spare room into a bingo parlor for Winifred. Her boyfriend Sam would move in, too. She could rent out the kids' rooms to young non-English speaking borders at ridiculous prices and use the money to hire her own maid.

In the midst of her revelry, Alice didn't notice a dark cloud materialize and gather over her…


End file.
